


Secondhand Smoke

by MangoMartini



Series: Irresistible [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Dirty Talk, Great Hiatus, M/M, Military Kink, Praise Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-01-17
Packaged: 2018-03-07 23:32:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3187355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MangoMartini/pseuds/MangoMartini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I feel terribly rude. I haven't introduced myself yet."  The man moves his drink to his left hand from his right—right handed, possibly ambidextrous—and extends his right hand to shake Sherlock's. "My name is Colonel Sebastian Moran."</p><p>The name doesn’t ring a bell so much as set off a siren. Sherlock has heard whisperings of an SM, a man who no one talks about but everyone seemed to fear. Sherlock had always thought that this would be the last piece to fall, that a man like that would not let himself get in the way of the other, smaller pieces in the game—the cannon fodder. He was a colonel, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secondhand Smoke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Abacura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abacura/gifts).



> My contribution to Seblock--something that started off as a small gift fic and kind of grew out of control.

Sherlock tugs at the cuffs of his tuxedo jacket. It's expensive, it had to be, but he didn't have time to get it tailored. "Try to go at least one day without getting any bullet holes in this one, will you?" Mycroft had asked as he wired the money into Sherlock's—Sigerson's—account.

It's throwing him off, if only slightly, but he tries to embrace it. Mark Sigerson wouldn't have a bespoke suit anyway, as much as Sherlock Holmes would. And the ill-fitting suit does help to conceal the gun Sherlock is currently armed with. It conceals the Kevlar, too.

"Everything alright, sir?" the bartender asks, his English well-practiced (it would have to be, no other way he could support a wife with such expensive tastes as well as two children without a job like this, even if it did mean catering to the English-speaking tourists) but not without an accent.

"I'm fine," Sherlock says, waving a hand and forcing himself to not gag on the nasally, American vowels in between all of his consonants.

He had wanted the alias Sigerson to play a more native role—his Swedish was still more than passable, or at least the parts he hadn't deleted (dressmaking, for example) were. But as Mycroft had suggested (ordered) and Sherlock had still not admitted to Mycroft (outright), there was nothing quite like traveling incognito as a nouveau riche American. Americans can be as loud, uncouth, and strange as they or anyone undercover would need to be, and everyone brushes it off once they hear the accent. Brilliant, though Sherlock would take that compliment to his grave.

He finishes his drink and orders another one, knowing he might need to play the part of the drunk American later that night and it's best then if everyone sees him drinking when they're still sober enough to remember. The cocktails are good, too. High quality spirits the chemical compounds of which is—currently irrelevant.

Across the room, the band strikes up. Low-key, jazzy sort of thing. Does he know the composer? The title of the piece? No. But it's just the sort of thing for this event, some sort of get together to gamble and drink for charity event—the kind of thing Moriarty himself might have attended, Sherlock muses, easily picturing Moriarty among the suited figures.

Some people get up to dance, older men with moustaches twirling girls in taffeta gowns in a way that makes Sherlock's abdomen hurt. But he doesn’t dwell, can't. People are moving in swirling black and silk masses and he needs to find a place to moor himself, more like a ship and less like flotsam.

"Ah, Monsieur!" A portly old woman with a blue/grey pompadour and a dress like Pepto-Bismol snake skin gestures at him with her whole body, like she's convulsing. "Won't you come over and play a hand with us?"

Sherlock doesn’t know her. Well, he knows that she's from Switzerland, her husband is dead and as much as she tries, she can't lure another man to her bed. He also knows that she dyes her hair herself and lies about that, though he doesn’t know why. Doesn't look like financial troubles. All of her jewelry is real.

But he doesn’t know who she is, and so he plays along. Either she's someone Mycroft sent something too—discreetly, of course, as governments do—or she is someone looking for _Sherlock_. Both are good reasons to keep close to her.

"Madame," Sherlock replies, butchering the word in a way that would make his French teacher spit venom had she heard. It was almost fun, really. The taste of gin made the accent easier, though nowhere near as comfortable as some of his other disguises.

He engages her in polite conversation, and what becomes glaringly apparent is that she _wants_ him. Sherlock doesn't delete that fact, but he doesn’t act on it either. He stays, playing craps and doing well but not too well and (loudly) laughing it off as luck. Sherlock deletes the woman's name almost immediately after hearing it. Threat level: zero.

It's going. Not well, because well would mean he had more information by now. But he is just about breaking even and has finished his second cocktail when he feels the unmistakable sensation of a pair of eyes on his back.

 _Finally_.

Sherlock is only here, after all, because of a lead from Mycroft about someone higher-up in Moriarty's crime syndicate that might be here. Anyone that high up would know what Sherlock looked like at least, and the accent wouldn’t fool them. The goal was to flush them out and then take them out.

Now he just has to figure out _who_ (friend? Foe?) is watching him. Foe, Sherlock hopes, because the sooner he deals with it the sooner he can be out of here and on to his next stop, Paris. There are a few tailors there that Sherlock has been _dying_ to get his hands on.

"I need another drink," Sherlock says suddenly, standing up. He doesn't say sorry and he doesn't take his empty back to the bar, he also doesn't offer to get the woman another drink even though her wine glass is empty—fully committed to the role of the American. Not that he cares much for social etiquette, as much as he knows it, but purposefully ignoring it when his costume calls for it feels as strange as the accent. He feels like a chef wielding a broadsword.

He stumbles, just slightly, as he gets up. Two cocktails of that strength for someone of his size who _doesn’t_ have a history of substance…use—just about right. He's thinner that he normally is. There's something to be said for suddenly not having a live-in doctor reminding one to eat at least once a day.

Sherlock keeps his eyes on the bar as he moves towards it, picking his way through people and only saying, "Excuse me," twice, but in a loud and American-enough way that he could hear whispers trailing after him like smoke from an engine, condemning the rude American. Perfect.

Had he not wanted to flush out the set of eyes, the bar would have been a mistake. It was open, only a few younger women lined up for more champagne, and forced Sherlock to put his back to the entire room. Well, if he was going to be shot, ideally he would be shot in the back and not the head.

"Another Old Fashioned?" the bartender asks, smiling and shaking his head slightly as if he is sure he is going to see more of Sherlock as the night progresses. 

"That'd be great," Sherlock says. He pulls out a fifty Krona note and puts it the in ornate tip jar.

He pulls his hand out just as another hand goes to drop a hundred Krona note on top of his.

Large hand, small scars, almost invisible to the eye. Nails cut short, not bitten. The hands are tough, even if they are trying to look well cared for. Sherlock knows those calluses. A faint tan, nothing intentional but also not unusual for this time of year. The suit is tailored judging from where the cuff lands and—cufflinks, that’s a nice touch. Expensive, silver with small diamonds. The shirt was pressed recently.

Sherlock knows before he even looks above the man's wrist that this is the man he is looking for—the man who has been looking for him.

"Those are some nice cufflinks," Sherlock says, smiling too wide and talking too loud—American. Across the room, as if they sense what's going on, the band shifts to a slower song.

The smile allows him to look at the man in the face. Sherlock doesn't know this face's name. He knows so much more though. Ex-military. Barely taller than Sherlock, dark blonde hair slicked back, muscled, scars (scratches?), smart. On that last point Sherlock is completely sure. This man is not Moriarty, but something similar. Something just as dangerous, just as feral. He licks his lips.

"Why thank you," the man says, before ordering his own drink, in a voice that makes Sherlock want to wince and laugh at the same time. He sounds like every school acquaintance Mycroft ever had. Sherlock, of course, didn’t have any. That posh voice, so polished, to the point where Sherlock wasn’t sure if it was fake or not.

He doesn't like that.

So Sherlock keeps smiling. "Cheers," he says, motioning towards the man with his glass before taking an overly-large drink. The word was too long and too much in the back of the throat, but definitely American. This was a cover meant to be blown, meant to lure in and not hide from whoever he was looking for. Whoever was, apparently, looking for him.

The stranger sips his drink and leans in a little closer. "Cheers," he replies, the word sounding both better and worse in his accent. This close, Sherlock can smell the man's cologne and recognizes it instantly—Clive Christian. Impressive. Sherlock is only wearing Versace.

"Your accent," the man says, not moving back, staying in Sherlock's space, "it's very interesting." Common intimidation tactic, his brain tells him. Another part reminds Sherlock that this is the first time he has been intimidated this close by a man that smells this good, and he makes a note to delete that fact. "Where are you from?"

Sherlock tries to lean away, wants to be able to get a look at the man's shoes, but he just leans right back in and Sherlock has to resign himself to the gap in his information. Damn. "New York City," Sherlock says, puffing out his thin chest like he's never been prouder of anything else. One of the many gestures he's stolen from John.

"Oh I'm sorry," the man says, just as he and Sherlock are jostled out from in front of the bar by a girl who looks no older than eighteen and a much older man with no hair and red cheeks. Sherlock turns his focus back on the mystery man so he doesn't have to deduce anymore of what's going on with _that_.

"I feel terribly rude. I haven't introduced myself yet." The man moves his drink to his left hand from his right—right handed, possibly ambidextrous—and extends his right hand to shake Sherlock's. "My name is Colonel Sebastian Moran."

The name doesn’t ring a bell so much as set off a siren. Sherlock has heard whisperings of an _SM_ , a man who no one talks about but everyone seemed to fear. Sherlock had always thought that this would be the last piece to fall, that a man like _that_ would not let himself get in the way of the other, smaller pieces in the game—the cannon fodder. He was a colonel, after all.

And yet here he was, impeccably dressed in a tailored suit (it would have to be, for a man of those proportions, those muscles) leaning in to Sherlock and introducing himself with what _has_ to be a real name.

But Sherlock won't break character that easily.

"Mark Sigerson," he replies, moving his own drink over to his left hand and shaking Moran's with more force and enthusiasm than necessary. "Nice to meet ya'." The words were out of his mouth as soon as he thought of them—apparently he was going to push this façade until he broke it himself. Thank god for Kevlar.

Moran leans in closer, and it reminds Sherlock of the older woman with the blue hair. "It's a little crowded out here," Moran says, voice barely audible over the music, even as slow as it is. "Why don't we continue this conversation on the balcony?"

This close, Moran could have stabbed him already. Moran could have poisoned his drink—Moran could have done exactly twenty three other things to incapacitate him. But he hasn’t. Now he wants Sherlock to go with him to a slightly more secluded yet still in full view of the party location where the only benefits might be darkness and the ability to have conversations of a more delicate nature. Threat level, moderate.

Two women behind Sherlock giggle, and he turns to see them (bringing his glass with him in front of his body) as they walked away. Why are they—just like the woman with the blue hair. This looks like flirting, like Moran was flirting with him. Sherlock takes a drink of his cocktail. Maybe he should have studied John a little closer.

"Sure," Sherlock says, and Moran smiles a toothy smile at him as he places his giant hand at the small of Sherlock's back. Sherlock says nothing, lets Moran do it. Homophobia might be par for the course for the American cover, but it is not going to be productive in this situation.

The balcony is all glass and chrome, and it even has a bar. It's Autumn, so the weather is nice. Moran leads Sherlock over to the railing of the balcony, that hand not ever leaving the small of his back. They are on the sixth floor of the hotel, most likely fatal if he were to fall—be pushed. An option, as Moran is sure to know about the Kevlar now.

There are a few women (witnesses) out who look less than happy with the temperature, but judging from the way they cling to the men (witnesses) they're with, most of whom are smoking, they don't care enough to go back inside. _Attachments_ , Sherlock thinks, and wishes he had a cigarette himself.

But as soon as they were there, the hand drops and Moran reached into his jacket to take out—knife?—gun?

"Cigarette?" Moran asks, opening the silver cigarette case with the skill of someone who does it often.

The initials on the cigarette case match the name that Moran gave him earlier. As much as he had suspected it, Sherlock is surprised by that honesty.

"Thanks," Sherlock replies, American accent still strong. He takes a deep breath before Moran lights the cigarette for him—he didn’t smell like smoke, just cologne. A smoker who made sure not to smell like one. Interesting.

The first drag, and Sherlock allows himself the luxury of steadying himself on the balcony railing with his free hand. The nicotine buzz scraped the back of his throat and felt like home going down to his lungs.

Moran made a noise as he lit up his own cigarette and put the lighter and case back in whatever hidden pocket they had come from. "From what I've heard of you, Mr. Holmes," Moran said, taking a drag and then letting it go, "you don’t indulge in this often."

"I have a hard time moderately indulging," Sherlock replies, dropping that god awful American accent. They were close enough where no one else would hear, and by his odds there was a fairly high chance one or both of them would be dead in the next twenty-four hours. "And not when I'm on a case."

They're standing close. Sherlock can still feel where Moran's hand had been on the small of his back. Who was the last person to touch him there, even with the Kevlar between them? Even when John had made Sherlock go to bed—or the couch—to get some sleep, he had always touched Sherlock's shoulders. This sort of touch was older, of younger days, in that terrifying realm between deleted and forgotten.

Moran's eyes are a bright blue, where Moriarty's were brown. But they have the same fire. These are the bright blue of flames, where John's were pool blue, bathroom tile blue. Because still everything goes back to John.

"And you're not on a case now?" There's something gruffer in the way Moran speaks, in the clipped words. No glottal stops, but something close, like they could appear at any moment. Sherlock can see the shift in vowels in the charts in his mind. "Because you're been very hard to find."

"You've been looking for me, then?" Sherlock asks, as redundant as it is. He doesn’t want answers—he wants conversation. People give the most away when they're trying not to, and thinking they're not.

The band inside starts playing a faster song, and a few women squeal and drag their men back inside—to dance, presumably. Sherlock still can't place the tune.

"It's a jazz cover of a pop song," Moran says. His cigarette is already half gone.

Sherlock wonders if Moran will take another one out to smoke, and if he does, if he will give Sherlock another one. "You're not going to ask me to dance, then?"

To this, Moran laughs. He laughs in a small, caged way, a tip of the iceberg laugh. "My dear Mr. Holmes, we're already dancing."

Sherlock knows a threat when he hears one. This whole evening was a threat, but they're moving closer to the main event now. Sherlock takes a long drag of his cigarette, estimates that he could get at least two more from it but drops it to the concrete floor and crushes it under his polished dress shoes. _Focus_.

"So tell me, Colonel Moran," Sherlock draws the title and the name out like caramel in between his teeth, "how long have you been looking for me?"

Moran finishes his cigarette and flicks it off over the balcony. "Since about the time my boss shot himself in the head."

Which meant that this was the _SM_ Sherlock had heard about. "I hadn’t expected to run into you until much later," Sherlock says. The band has gotten louder, sped up, and Sherlock can almost make out the tune through the glass walls.

"And I had expected you to check in with your boyfriend at least once."

Moran looks at Sherlock, eyes flame-sharp. Waiting for a reaction. Sherlock doesn't give him the pleasure. If anything would have happened to John, anything serious, Mycroft would have told him. Whatever else happened, everyone—John, Lestrade, Molly—were all alive. Sherlock knows that. So he stick with, "He's not my boyfriend."

The tune finishes with a crescendo, and Sherlock can hear those inside cheering as the band transitions into something slower, more common. People begin to come back outside. A few start smoking, he can smell it on the evening breeze along with Moran's cologne.

"Funny," Moran replies, the corners of his lips quirking up, "I thought you were queer."

If Moriarty wanted to burn the heart out of him, Moran is taking a much more direct approach. Sherlock meets Moran's gaze, but not his smile. "And I thought you were dangerous, _colonel_."

Moran moves faster than Sherlock expected. Before he can blink, there is an arm around his waist, with thick fingers curling into the fabric of his jacket. Moran's face is on the side of his, and they are cheek to cheek. Moran tilts his head up so he can speak right into his ear, lips brushing against it. "Right now you're armed with at least a Browning L9A1—a real one this time—and wearing a Kevlar vest." The arm around his waist tightens. "I am dangerous, Mr. Holmes, not stupid."

Sherlock chooses to focus on his options and not the way his skin is prickling. This is clearly a flirtation. He can push Moran away, scream something American-esque, and pretend to stumble off drunk to his room. A message to Mycroft and he could be out and safe within the hour.

Or he could stay. He could put _his_ arm around Moran and see what happens, chase down the lead he came to flush out in the first place—reel in the shark on the end of his fishing line.

Option one is safe. Option two allows for information.

Sherlock puts his arm around Moran. No Kevlar, just wool, wool and muscles. He doesn't know what to do with his hand though, so he lets it follow the curve of his arm down, resting near Moran's hip.

There's no way to turn and look Moran in the eye, not this close. Sherlock tilts his head so he doesn't have to raise his voice and asks, "what do you want from me?"

Another iceberg chuckle and Sherlock wonders if he'll start sinking soon. "I though you said you weren't queer," Moran asserts.

"I said that John wasn't my boyfriend." Sherlock tenses his fingers on Moran's hip. "It isn't for lack of trying. But what do you want?" He draws out each word of the question, punctuation them, punching them out.

"I believe, _darling_ , that we are beginning to cause a scene." And then Moran's voice shifts. The dance is over, and it feels like being dropped down out of a dip onto the hardwood floor. "Pretend to be drunk."

"And if I don't feel like I've had enough to drink?" Sherlock asks. He can't reach his gun from this position, but Moran has implied that he wasn’t armed, so—

"Oh, but you have," Moran answers, and there's a knife poking into Sherlock's side, just under where the Kevlar ends.

Sherlock didn't notice the knife before. Maybe that was the reason for the cologne, to put the attention on one sense to distract another. And it worked. Sherlock didn’t fancy having to be patched up again, not by the doctors Mycroft would send, and so he went with his only option.

"What do they put in these drinks?" Sherlock asks loudly, suddenly, taking pleasure in the way Moran slightly winces away. The drunk American indeed.

Moran takes Sherlock's arm—the arm that isn't around his waist—and slings it over his shoulders. "Here, allow me to help you to your room."

The walk to the elevator feels too forced, too farcical, and at any moment Sherlock expects someone to stop them, to throw popcorn on them and call out the melodramatic charade being played out in the hotel hallways. But no one does. Not even the women who step out of the elevator, leaving it empty for Sherlock and Moran. 

"What floor?" Moran asks, and Sherlock tells him. Moran presses the button and then corners Sherlock against the wall of the elevator. "Cameras," he whispers into Sherlock's ear, and there's that tingling sensation again, skittering down his spine and towards his pelvis. "So you need to kiss me."

Sherlock doesn't have to look to know that the cameras are in a perfect position to catch that, if they were ever to go back over the footage. And it would make him looking willing, happy to be here, like he isn't being coerced with a knife to his side.

"I'm drunk," Sherlock reminds Moran. For the first time tonight, he smiles. "Tradition would dictate that you need to take advantage of me, as the sober party in this."

If it's a bluffing game, Sherlock will not be the one to break first. He could go one for years—has gone on for years with John. And this big, dangerous military man—Sherlock expects him to laugh and back away, or to fake it, or—

Moran pushes him against a wall and kisses him, hard. For a long moment Sherlock can't move, doesn’t know how to. But Moran won't relent, and finally Sherlock remembers where he stored that information, lip movements and breathing patterns and when to do that thing with his tongue.

He relaxes, slightly, under the weight of Moran and kisses back. Sherlock feels more than sees the smile on Moran's lips, and tries to eradicate it with his own lips, then his tongue. It's been awhile, but it's like—well he has deleted bike riding, so maybe it is more like playing the violin.

The ding of the elevator snaps him out of it, and then Moran pulls away to drag Sherlock out of the elevator, knife still in place.

"If you thought you were going to throw me off kilter with an act of homosexuality, you are mistaken."

Moran pushes the knife in a little deeper, still not breaking the skin but fraying the fabric of his tuxedo. "But an act of affection, now that seems to have thrown you." He nudges Sherlock, and only then does Sherlock realize how much he had been leaning on Moran, not even playing drunk.

They stop in front of Sherlock's room, and Moran asks where the room key is.

"Back pocket," Sherlock replies, and can't help but feel smug about it. At least until Moran slides two fingers down into the back left pocket of Sherlock's trousers and begins to look for the cardkey. His back stiffens and for a moment Sherlock forgets to breath, and then does so loudly just to make sure he still can.

"It's not there."

"The other pocket," Sherlock manages to say, just in time for Moran to find and pull out Sherlock's keycard. "You must know I'm right-handed."

"I do," Moran replies, using the key to open the door and pushing Sherlock inside. "What I'd like to know is when was the last time anyone touched you."

Sherlock's room is dark, until Moran flicks the switch for the light. There's a small, black suitcase in the corner, and suitcase debris scattered around it: white shirts, black socks, dark purple and green boxer-briefs. There's a list of suspects on the bedside table and scattered paper napkin notes on the desk, with pens and a diagram made of the hotel soap bottles arranged around a drawn-out shower cap.

The door clicks shut. "Take your gun out, take the cartridge out, and set them both on the desk."

An order.

But again, options. Moran has, as far as Sherlock knows, a knife. Sherlock has a gun. But his arms, hands, fingertips don’t seem to want to cooperate. He can still feel the heat of Moran's lips on his, and the tone of that command is drifting in and out of his ears like waves of lava. "That was smart," Sherlock says, stepping towards the desk and doing as Moran ordered. "Temporarily reducing my…overall ability to function." He puts the parts on the desk and does his best to not disrupt the work already on it.

"Only temporarily? I could ruin you for the entire evening."

"Or you could kill me. Didn't you bring me here to kill me?"

Moran chuckles and runs his free hand through his blonde hair. The diamond in the cufflink catches the light, and Sherlock wonders what that hair feels like, what that hand would feel like. He wonders if they're dancing again, dancing to a new song.

"Do you," Moran asks, stepping closer, "want me to kill you? You always seemed as though you were rather fond of yourself." He still has the knife in his hands, but he's lowered it.

Stepping forward was a challenge, and now Sherlock has to answer it. He can back up, or he can move forward. He has an armed and dangerous man in his hotel room and his gun is behind him, currently useless. He has a man in his hotel room, in a hotel where only this man knows his real name.

For the first time in the evening, Sherlock doesn’t think of John.

He steps forward.

"A little death never hurts," he says, and Moran rolls those blue-fire eyes.

"Do I need to gag you?" Moran asks, rolling his eyes. He snakes an arm around Sherlock again in a way that is starting to become familiar, and Sherlock lets himself be drawn in, pulled against Moran's body, positioning Moran between Sherlock and the wall. He tips Sherlock's head up like he wants to examine his cheekbones, his nose, the bow of his lips. "Moriarty did call you 'The Virgin.'"

That name changes the tone and puts hard lines above Moran's eyebrows, ones Sherlock can barely see. "I can assure you," Sherlock replies, reaching up to grab a fistful of Moran's white shirt, "I'm not."

Before Moran can reply, Sherlock surges forward and kisses him on the mouth. He's trying to gauge reactions, to see if—but then one of those giant hands is squeezing his arse, kneading it through the wool of his tuxedo, and the feedback threatens to overload Sherlock completely.

He can hear the knife fall to the floor and then Moran moving to kick it away, freeing up his other hand to grope Sherlock's arse as well. Sherlock pulls away to moan, a soft sound from the back of the throat that makes Moran laugh.

"You really haven't been touched in a while, have you?"

"Five years, three months, and—"

"Shut up," Moran growls, pushing Sherlock back only to spin them both and pin Sherlock against the wall. He leans his forehead against Sherlock's, eyes barely blue at all in their dilation, his hands moving from Sherlock's arse to his hips. "That's an order."

For a second it's all too much, too much current sensory input that his mind is struggling to process along what it's suddenly remembering, dusty trunks from the basement of his mind palace full of past encounters—most short, quick, underwhelming. The problems of someone with an imagination most partners could not match.

"Yes."

Moran does not miss a beat. He shoves his thigh in between Sherlock's legs. "Yes, _what_?"

Sherlock gulps. Tentatively he moves his hips forward, grinding on Moran's thigh and—

"Yes. What?" Moran repeated, moving a hand from Sherlock's hip up to around his neck. Moran doesn't squeeze. He doesn't have to.

"Yes, _sir_."

"There we go," Moran says, stroking the skin behind Sherlock's ear. Sherlock tilts his head to get more of the touch. "I was worried you weren't going to know how to be obedient." Moran's hand goes down from Sherlock's neck and he pulls back just slightly, enough to undo the bowtie around Sherlock's neck and pocket it. Then the top button of his collared shirt, and then the next.

Sherlock doesn't move. He doesn't know how to, or if he is even allowed to.

Moran undoes one more button, and the black Kevlar vest comes in to view. Sherlock looks down at it, and then up to Moran. But Moran says nothing. He just keeps undoing the small, plastic buttons one by one, down past his chest to his waist and then stepping back completely to pull the undone shirt out from where Sherlock had tucked it in.

He undoes the belt next, tugging it off in one movement and tossing it on the bed in a way that made Sherlock's breath hitch and Moran smirk.

"That's a better reaction than I had hoped for," he says, breaking the silence into shards before kissing Sherlock again. Through the bruising kiss, Moran pushes off the jacket and shirt from Sherlock's shoulders. They fall, awkward and untailored, past his thin wrists and to the floor, pooling at his feet.

With the garments on the floor, there is space for Moran to sink his teeth into Sherlock's shoulder, and Sherlock clings to Moran as he does so, can feel the teeth breaking his skin and moans.

"Are you loud?" Moran asks, licking at the spot he bit. Tiny red droplets of blood poke out of the skin, welling into tiny pools before Moran licks them away again.

And Sherlock wants _more_. This is better than a cigarette, better than a needle. "I can be loud, sir," he replies, emphasizing the last word. "If I have a reason to be."

There is a ripping sound as the straps on the Kevlar vest are undone, and Moran manhandles the vest off Sherlock and then slams him back against the wall. The wind is knocked out of Sherlock's lungs and he can feel his body sag, held up only by Moran's hands.

Sherlock gasps, not caring that he can feel Moran's eyes raking up and down his thin chest. He'd apologize if he was allowed to talk, or if he thought it was a problem.

Moran, for his part, bites the other side of Sherlock—his shoulder, drawing blood and making Sherlock squirm and moan again. It's almost too much until Moran reaches down and grabs Sherlock's cock through his trousers and then it is too much. Sherlock throws his head back and it hits the wall, but the pain of that becomes blurred out when Moran's teeth are on his neck.

"Please," Sherlock pants, keeping his eyes closed so he can focus on other senses—the ones Moran keeps assaulting. This close he can smell Moran's cologne and the faint tang of blood, but he also feels Moran all over him, his mouth where it is and his mouth where it has been and— "Please."

"Please what?" Moran drawls, slowly stroking Sherlock as he talks. "You'll have to be specific."

There are words that Sherlock has. He knows the syllables and the consonants to them, and he's said them before. But they're locked somewhere away, trapped by a haze of lust and surprise and all the blood rushing down to his usually-ignored cock. "More," he says, and he knows it won't be enough even before Moran squeezes him too tight to be pleasurable.

"Fuck me," Sherlock says, his voice sounding foreign, like he had shot up already and couldn’t remember the color blue, much less his voice. "I need you to fuck me. Hard."

The strokes go back to being slow, not enough pressure that slowly makes Sherlock's legs feel structurally unsound. "Are you that desperate already?" Moran asks, sounding both amused and proud and if Sherlock wasn't so distracted, he could read the man's face to see if _he_ had done this before, if he liked being where he was, or anything really. But if it was a choice between sex and deductions, Sherlock knew where he wanted his focus, his blood.

Sherlock nods, eyes still closed.

Moran backs up and Sherlock slumps down. "Take off your clothes and go kneel on the bed. That is an order."

"Yes, sir," Sherlock replies, nearly tripping over himself to move over to the bed. He's focused on remembering how his fingers work so he can take his dress shoes and socks off and so he doesn't say anything to Moran, who is rummaging through Sherlock's suitcase.

"Looking for government secrets?" Sherlock quips. Moran is far enough away where the smell and feel of him isn't quite as intoxicating.

"Lube," Moran replies, dangling the vial of gun oil. He holds it until Sherlock has his socks, shoes, trousers and pants off, all dropped in a haphazard pile at the foot of the bed. He tries to move slowly, not wanting to have to touch his cock, and finally maneuvers himself to the center of the bed, up on his sharp knees.

He tosses the gun oil onto the bed in front of Sherlock. Moran, for his part, still has all his clothes on—they're barely askew. Sherlock watches him, the way he walks around the bed eyeing Sherlock like prey that had willingly crawled into the trap. It makes him want to touch himself, but he doesn't. He doesn't move any more than he needs to, to keep watching Moran.

"Now," Moran says, with a voice of authority that Sherlock doesn't think he will ever get enough of, "we are going to see how good you are at following orders." At that, he reaches over to run his fingers through Sherlock's curly hair, tugging slightly at the end before pulling away completely.

"Yes, sir."

"Very good." Moran stops pacing and watches. "Now, pick up the lube. You're going to finger yourself for me. I assume you've done that before?"

By the tone of his voice, Sherlock knows that Moran doesn't care if he has or not. But the memories, the experiences, are still there and vivid now, bold and highlighted. "Yes, sir," Sherlock says, and he picks up the lube.

"We're going to start with one finger. Pour some oil out and warm it up in your fingers. That's a good boy."

Sherlock does as he's told and doesn't care that he's flushing. He watches the oil swish against his skin, acclimating to his body temperature. He glances over to see Moran watching him.

"Now reach back and—yes, good."

Sherlock had jumped ahead, muscle memory taking over as his finger circles his hole once before pushing in, slowly. Sherlock closes his eyes to focus, fucking himself on one finger and _knowing_ that Moran is watching him. No one makes any more noise than they have to, while Sherlock gets used to the pressure, finds the pleasure.

"How does it feel?" Moran asks. Sherlock doesn’t look, but it sounds like Moran is touching himself through his trousers.

It takes a moment for Sherlock to get his breath. "Good. I—I haven't done this in a while."

Moran makes a low noise. "Add another finger then. Go on."

One finger becomes two, and Sherlock slowly puts them back in, leaning back down to stretch himself as fast as he can, pain be damned.

"Greedy, aren’t you? Or are you just that eager to get my cock in your arse?"

Sherlock's got two his two fingers pumping in and out of his arse, head thrown back. "Yes," he moans, adding quickly, "sir." He can hear Moran moving, the shuffle of his shoes being taken off—socks too. He scissors his fingers, trying to increase the stretch without adding another finger.

He hits his prostate and moans at it, and tries to barley hit it any more to avoid finishing before Moran joins him, or commands him to. But then the bed dips, and Sherlock stops moving. He opens his eyes, and Moran is there, lying down on the bed with his arms tucked behind his head, half propped up by the headboard. His shoes and socks are off, as is his jacket. "Don't mind me," he says, grinning madly, "I'm just here for the show."

"Is this all you want?" Sherlock asks. His voice is tight, breathy.

Moran is clearly aroused—the tuxedo trousers don't do much to hide that fact. "You are _greedy_ ," he drawls, but even Sherlock knows it's not a complaint. Moran moves up to un-tuck his shirt and unzip his trousers and tugs them and his pants down just enough to pull his cock out.

Sherlock doesn't care that he can feel his eyebrows attempting to merge with his hairline at the way his eyes are open so wide. He licks his lips too, because he's already naked, hard and with two fingers up his arse and so he might as well. Moran's cock is thick, and Sherlock's eyes follow Moran's hand as he strokes it languidly.

"Yes, sir," Sherlock says, to no question in particular except the size of Moran's cock.

"I'd tell you to suck it," Moran says, still stroking his dick and with a tone as if he's considering the weather. But Sherlock can see the beads of sweat on his temples, the way his throat is tense, and the dark dilation of Moran's eyes. To Moran, Sherlock is not the weather.

"I can't?"

"But right now I want you to ride my cock until you come all over this shirt."

"Yes, sir, colonel sir," Sherlock replies. He reaches for the gun oil, getting more in his hand so he can put it on Moran's cock. Sherlock gets as far as two strokes before Moran swats his hand away.

"Your arse on my cock, _now_."

Sherlock crawls up the bed so that his thin legs are straddling Moran's hips. He looks down and Moran is breathing heavy, watching Sherlock's every move. "How long has it been since _you've_ done this?" Sherlock asks, bracing himself with his left hand on the bed near Moran's thigh.

Moran doesn't reply. Instead he grabs Sherlock's hips and moves them down, growling, " _Now_ ," like he's so much more desperate than he looks.

Slowly, so slowly, Sherlock sinks down on Moran's cock. The gun oil helps but _fuck_ it's so much bigger than two of Sherlock's spindly fingers, even bigger than the toy Sherlock has (had?) at home.

"What a little cock slut you are," Moran says, and Sherlock just moans in response. Moran cants his hips up and Sherlock groans, not entirely from pleasure, but it gets him that much closer to being fully seated in Moran's lap. "So desperate for a good cock to be shoved up your arse aren't you? And look at you, you take it so well."

Objectively, Sherlock knows it's all crap. But his objectivity came off around the same time as his pants, and so he just makes more noises, more breathy, needy noises until he's finally got all of Moran's cock inside him.

Moran props himself up on his elbows and leans forward enough to push some hair from Sherlock's eyes. "You're not done yet," Moran says, and the tender gesture barely offset the threat. He grabs Sherlock's arse again, squeezes it, touches his hips and thighs and stomach and whatever he can get his hands. "You're going to ride me until you come."

"Yes," Sherlock hisses, lifting himself slowly up, only so he can drop himself back down on Moran's cock, "sir."

It takes three more attempts before they build a rhythm—Sherlock thrusting his hips like the greedy slut Moran keeps calling him, and Moran thrusting back, never letting go of Sherlock's thin body.

Sherlock drops his body forward, hips still working, meeting Moran's. He braces himself with his hands on the bed besides Moran's chest, and Moran reaches up to put his hand around Sherlock's neck. He doesn't ask for permission, and Sherlock doesn't give it to him. But Sherlock doesn't deny it either.

"Come on," Moran says, "I want to see you come from fucking yourself on my cock."

There are other praises, some even of Sherlock's physical form, but Sherlock's too close now and tunes them out. All he feels is the sweat on his hipbones, the way the bed squeaks and the way the headboard hits the wall. "Touch—touch me," Sherlock gets out, trying to vocalize what he wants in the same way Moran is so capable of.

"No," is Moran's quick reply. "You're close," he says. "Or are you just waiting for me to tell you to come?" Sherlock moans at that, an unstructured yes. "Alright then you little fucking slut, come. Come all over me like the desperate thing you are."

And for no logical reason that Sherlock can fathom, it works, The rhythm breaks and his hips stutter. Sherlock leans back up to grab his cock, stroking the last of his come out and all over Moran's white shirt. Sherlock knows the exact chemical reasons why it will stain, but doesn't say them. What he says is, "You haven’t finished yet."

"How astute. This must be why they call you a genius," is Moran's reply. But the words are thin, stretched out like a blank canvas dripping with unpainted desire. "Now get off me and get on all fours so I can hold you down and fuck you."

Sherlock complies.

Moran moves, easily sliding back in and then it's barely a dozen thrusts before he's holding Sherlock down and coming inside him with sounds behind his teeth that he won't let out. Moran only lingers for a moment before pulling out, leaving Sherlock to drop down to the bed, sore and exhausted.

For what feels like three years, no one says anything. There are the faraway noises of people walking down the hallway, of sundry hotel noises and the sounds of both men breathing heavily. Sherlock feels like his muscles have been replaced with jam. Weak, he knows, he's weak and vulnerable and—

"If you're going to kill me, I would suggest doing it now," Sherlock mutters, tilting his head so he isn't just speaking into the cotton sheets. He could die like this, he thinks. It would be like dying high, something he hadn't thought of in years.

Moran doesn't respond to that. What he does do is take the belt he had thrown over earlier and force Sherlock's arms behind his back to bind his wrists together. Sherlock gives them a small tug, but the belt holds. Of course it does.

"You deserve to die," Moran says. He moves to straddle Sherlock, the wool of his trousers scraping against Sherlock's skin. Moran puts his hands around Sherlock's neck, holding but not squeezing. Moran's voice sounds like the way the hands around Sherlock's neck feels. "For killing Moriarty. You were all he wanted."

"I never wanted him to die," Sherlock admits. The odds he might actually die are mounting, if Moran is this confident in showing the aces tucked up his sleeves. Sherlock needs an out. The plan had always been to tell John he wasn’t dead. He didn't want Mycroft to have to tell John that Sherlock really was dead.

"Neither did I," Moran says, redundant as it is to the both of them. "And now you're all I have left."

"Paris is lovely this time of the year." An ace for an ace, Sherlock feels. Fair fights are always more interesting.

Moran makes a noise like he's thinking about it, but then smacks his lips like he gets it, has it figured it out, and is planning his next move around it. "And how about you?"

"Another thirteen to seventeen minutes and—"

"And you'll have that mouth around my cock, won't you?"

"Yes, sir."


End file.
